Protect The English Language

[Sciongrad]

Concurred. We too use a universal translator, and we speak Lanthanic. "English" is not of any relevance to the World Assembly and therefore should not be protected.

English is the official language of the WA...

Confused, Natalia carefully rose from her chair, exaggerating every possible wince of pain or tortured cry to ensure that everyone in the room knew how her knees ached. Satisfied, she began: "O Quê? Desde quando é o Inglês a língua oficial da WA? Eu tenho sido um embaixador aqui por algum tempo agora, e eu nunca uma vez Inglês falado, então eu não sei como você chegou à conclusão de que "Inglês" é a língua oficial desta instituição inteira." She fumbled with the gadget around her head for a few moments, and by the time she had fixed it, she forgot what her point was, and acted out what could only be described as a play, written in three acts, recounting the tragic tale of an old woman trying to sit back into her chair.

[Shazbotdom]

Concurred. We too use a universal translator, and we speak Lanthanic. "English" is not of any relevance to the World Assembly and therefore should not be protected.

English is the official language of the WA...

"Pardon me, but what sort of horse shit is this?" Asked the Ambassador from the Shazbotdom Empire. "We have Universal Translators so that all the Delegates can understand each other. These Translators change the spoken language of the Delegate into the native language of the receiving unit. Now I might speak English, but the device on the Delegation from Sciongrad translates it into her native tongue. Perhaps if you want to pass legislation to protect languages, you should ensure that the aforementioned legislation attempts to protect all the languages of the World Assembly. If this cannot be done to your satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of the Delegation of this August Body, then you should give up this attempt and try for something that is more, what's the word I am looking for, worthwhile?"

[Grays Harbor]

Concurred. We too use a universal translator, and we speak Lanthanic. "English" is not of any relevance to the World Assembly and therefore should not be protected.

English is the official language of the WA...

OOC: Wrong answer. English is the language of this forum/website, as set down by the owner of the website. That has not one thing to do with the WA. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

[The Miskatonic Valley]

"Pardon me, but what sort of horse shit is this?" Asked the Ambassador from the Shazbotdom Empire. "We have Universal Translators so that all the Delegates can understand each other. These Translators change the spoken language of the Delegate into the native language of the receiving unit. Now I might speak English, but the device on the Delegation from Sciongrad translates it into her native tongue. Perhaps if you want to pass legislation to protect languages, you should ensure that the aforementioned legislation attempts to protect all the languages of the World Assembly. If this cannot be done to your satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of the Delegation of this August Body, then you should give up this attempt and try for something that is more, what's the word I am looking for, worthwhile?"

That's right! We've got Babel fish, sweetie!

[Jute]

Concurred. We too use a universal translator, and we speak Lanthanic. "English" is not of any relevance to the World Assembly and therefore should not be protected.

English is the official language of the WA...

OOC only, though, isn't it?

[Sierra Lyricalia]

The Opining and gen'ral Character of responce of the Evangelizing Metasyndicate hath not Changed an iota from its initial knee-jerk Reaction. Suphyce it to saye that we curse, condemn, and deplore in all Tongues the nefarious Author of this proposal, which greatly Chappeth our Hind-Quarters. It be an utter Non-Starter, whose flaws we take Leave to think impossible to Exaggerate.

[Grays Harbor]

The Opining and gen'ral Character of responce of the Evangelizing Metasyndicate hath not Changed an iota from its initial knee-jerk Reaction. Suphyce it to saye that we curse, condemn, and deplore in all Tongues the nefarious Author of this proposal, which greatly Chappeth our Hind-Quarters. It be an utter Non-Starter, whose flaws we take Leave to think impossible to Exaggerate.

Verily, thou hast thy nail on the head struck with thine hammer.

[Ardchoilleans]

I am uncertain whether to frown direfully at Bok Land for gravedigging this, or thank him for pushing it up the menu so I didn't miss out on Sierra Lyricalia's earlier gem and recent grace note (above) on the theme. Whatever, I'm leaving it open because these discursive sessions at the end of dead threads often seem to help people give the GA a, um, human-and-other-sapients face.

Predictably, there's

Proposal language

Not everybody speaks English as a first language (or at all, for that matter). Unfortunately, NS is a game in English. If you cannot compose in proper English, seek the help of somebody (hint-hint, run it through an online translator and post here for clean-up). A Proposal won't be nuked for the occasional typo, but if players and Mods have to spend a good chunk of time trying to figure out what's going on, it'll be nuked.

Proposals written entirely in other languages are out, too.

OOCly, there's also the 'orrible example of the player who insisted on giving French, Spanish (and one other language?) translations of his every post, making them all even longer than mine and those of [enjoy snarkily inserting your favourite wordy player's name here] combined. That trick eventually resulted in a DoS order, which is the second-silliest way to get yourself DoSed that I've ever seen (the silliest was the guy who always wrote in a pale apricot colour that, thankfully, seems to be no longer available).

In RP? Well, I've switched to my non-mod puppet for this post so that nothing I say can be accidentally taken as mods trying to interfere in RP. Personally, I RP that English is the lingua franca of the GA and NS diplomacy generally, which isn't the same as saying that it's the Official Language. Nor do I want to be the player responsible for pinning down the Universal Translator (an Acme product? ) as canon, because there's so much scope for RP involving personal translators as characters, inadvertent or deliberate mistranslations, WA Gnomes, psychic powers, super hearing, magic tokens, Ceridwen's cauldron -- you name it.

[Jute]

I am uncertain whether to frown direfully at Bok Land for gravedigging this, or thank him for pushing it up the menu so I didn't miss out on Sierra Lyricalia's earlier gem and recent grace note (above) on the theme. Whatever, I'm leaving it open because these discursive sessions at the end of dead threads often seem to help people give the GA a, um, human-and-other-sapients face.

Predictably, there's

Proposal language

Not everybody speaks English as a first language (or at all, for that matter). Unfortunately, NS is a game in English. If you cannot compose in proper English, seek the help of somebody (hint-hint, run it through an online translator and post here for clean-up). A Proposal won't be nuked for the occasional typo, but if players and Mods have to spend a good chunk of time trying to figure out what's going on, it'll be nuked.

Proposals written entirely in other languages are out, too.

OOCly, there's also the 'orrible example of the player who insisted on giving French, Spanish (and one other language?) translations of his every post, making them all even longer than mine and those of [enjoy snarkily inserting your favourite wordy player's name here] combined. That trick eventually resulted in a DoS order, which is the second-silliest way to get yourself DoSed that I've ever seen (the silliest was the guy who always wrote in a pale apricot colour that, thankfully, seems to be no longer available).

In RP? Well, I've switched to my non-mod puppet for this post so that nothing I say can be accidentally taken as mods trying to interfere in RP. Personally, I RP that English is the lingua franca of the GA and NS diplomacy generally, which isn't the same as saying that it's the Official Language. Nor do I want to be the player responsible for pinning down the Universal Translator (an Acme product? ) as canon, because there's so much scope for RP involving personal translators as characters, inadvertent or deliberate mistranslations, WA Gnomes, psychic powers, super hearing, magic tokens, Ceridwen's cauldron -- you name it.

I didn't know you could be DOS for those things...

[Ardchoille]

I didn't know you could be DOS for those things...

They were DoSed for disrupting the operations of the forums and failing to respect other players. Most people would just have said, "OK, since it's a problem, I'll stop."

In both cases, it wasn't just one incident. First players, then mods, explained repeatedly what difficulties their posts were causing. Both were warned, then banned for increasingly longer periods and told that a DoS was likely before it was applied.

People in the RP forums were particularly annoyed by the three-languages guy -- imagine how much extra material you'd have to plough through to find out what stage a story had reached. It wasn't appreciated here, either.

The apricot-typeface one was impossible for players with poor eyesight to read, even using artificial aids. When you consider that (violet) once changed the colour of the whole game for one player -- someone legally blind, but able to see some shades more easily than others -- you can understand how seriously NS takes its players. The reason was explained over and over, but the DoS guy was a jerk about it.

[The Dark Star Republic]

That whole thing with Diatraba was absolutely hilarious, especially because of how irrationally angry his constant translations made the otherwise normally rather laid back Sionis Prioratus, who was reduced to foaming at the mouth every time he spotted a new puppet popping up with a post full of Google Translated spoilers.

Anyway, does bumping this topic mean you intend to redraft the proposal?

[Jute]

I didn't know you could be DOS for those things...

They were DoSed for disrupting the operations of the forums and failing to respect other players. Most people would just have said, "OK, since it's a problem, I'll stop."

In both cases, it wasn't just one incident. First players, then mods, explained repeatedly what difficulties their posts were causing. Both were warned, then banned for increasingly longer periods and told that a DoS was likely before it was applied.

People in the RP forums were particularly annoyed by the three-languages guy -- imagine how much extra material you'd have to plough through to find out what stage a story had reached. It wasn't appreciated here, either.

The apricot-typeface one was impossible for players with poor eyesight to read, even using artificial aids. When you consider that (violet) once changed the colour of the whole game for one player -- someone legally blind, but able to see some shades more easily than others -- you can understand how seriously NS takes its players. The reason was explained over and over, but the DoS guy was a jerk about it.

Thanks for the explanations. I guess maybe the guy writing in three languages should have put the other two in a spoiler or two, right?

[Ardchoille]

Thanks for the explanations. I guess maybe the guy writing in three languages should have put the other two in a spoiler or two, right?

Could have helped. I don't think we had spoilers then. You youngsters have got it too easy. Time was, we didn't even have Repeals, and we had to chip bad proposals out of the forums letter by letter with our flint axes ...

[Jute]

Thanks for the explanations. I guess maybe the guy writing in three languages should have put the other two in a spoiler or two, right?

Could have helped. I don't think we had spoilers then. You youngsters have got it too easy. Time was, we didn't even have Repeals, and we had to chip bad proposals out of the forums letter by letter with our flint axes ...

Must have really been a hard time Things have gotten much easier now.
Did they just use Google Translate, or did the user went through the trouble of translating everything on their own?

[Grays Harbor]

Thanks for the explanations. I guess maybe the guy writing in three languages should have put the other two in a spoiler or two, right?

Could have helped. I don't think we had spoilers then. You youngsters have got it too easy. Time was, we didn't even have Repeals, and we had to chip bad proposals out of the forums letter by letter with our flint axes ...

No, we had spoilers then. I remember because in some RPs at that time i would post my characters speaking partially or in whole in "harberian" (welsh), then have the english spoilered. But just in RPs where a language difference would matter.

[Ardchoille]

<snip> ... Did they just use Google Translate, or did the user went through the trouble of translating everything on their own?

I think Dark Star answered that. He also got the topic back on track.

My embarrassed apologies to Bok Land for calling your re-opening post gravedigging and describing this as a dead thread. I had several open at once and attributed this to another OP. If you are going ahead with this proposal, please edit the text of it (preserved by Hirota here) into the thread's first post. When/if you write a new version, spoiler the existing one as

Code: Select all

[spoiler=First Draft] The WA, Noting (whatever your text is ...).[/spoiler]

On the only legality point that's been raised so far -- that English is a RW reference -- I doubt that objection would be upheld. I think mods have allowed references to RW religions, using either (a) common sense or (b) the argument that, for example, "Catholic'' is not a reference to the RW religion but to the way or ways it's practised in the NS Multiverse. Usually proposals don't need to get that specific. Still, I think the same argument could be used about English in NS.

As to whether you should continue with it, that's not a matter for mods, it's your choice.

---

@Grays: Might've been a refusal to spoiler the stuff, then?

@Bok Land: As a player, based on the reaction here, I'd can it. But if you're determined to go ahead, you might be able strike a more international note with a proposal urging member nations to preserve and monitor the formal structure of their national language via [clauses about school curricula, approved dictionaries, sponsored programs for your speakers in other countries, bans on linguistic borrowing in official documents, a committee to rule on words for new things, technological terms, etc]. If you go for that, please start a new thread.

And if anyone finds this greyed-out colour offensive, near-invisible or just damn annoying, please let me know and I'll edit it ASAP. .

[Jute]

<snip> ... Did they just use Google Translate, or did the user went through the trouble of translating everything on their own?

I think Dark Star answered that. He also got the topic back on track.

My embarrassed apologies to Bok Land for calling your re-opening post gravedigging and describing this as a dead thread. I had several open at once and attributed this to another OP. If you are going ahead with this proposal, please edit the text of it (preserved by Hirota here) into the thread's first post. When/if you write a new version, spoiler the existing one as

Code: Select all

[spoiler=First Draft] The WA, Noting (whatever your text is ...).[/spoiler]

On the only legality point that's been raised so far -- that English is a RW reference -- I doubt that objection would be upheld. I think mods have allowed references to RW religions, using either (a) common sense or (b) the argument that, for example, "Catholic'' is not a reference to the RW religion but to the way or ways it's practised in the NS Multiverse. Usually proposals don't need to get that specific. Still, I think the same argument could be used about English in NS.

As to whether you should continue with it, that's not a matter for mods, it's your choice.

---

@Grays: Might've been a refusal to spoiler the stuff, then?

@Bok Land: As a player, based on the reaction here, I'd can it. But if you're determined to go ahead, you might be able strike a more international note with a proposal urging member nations to preserve and monitor the formal structure of their national language via [clauses about school curricula, approved dictionaries, sponsored programs for your speakers in other countries, bans on linguistic borrowing in official documents, a committee to rule on words for new things, technological terms, etc]. If you go for that, please start a new thread.

And if anyone finds this greyed-out colour offensive, near-invisible or just damn annoying, please let me know and I'll edit it ASAP. .

Thankfully marking or quoting the text get rids of the color problem

[Bok Land]

I'm actually finding this all quite enjoyable as the whole Protect the English Language idea came up because I was in language arts class and my teacher took points off for something that was grammatically correct and I was a bit annoyed. I had no idea that it would cause such interesting debate. I'm now considering revising it to make it legitimate if I can get enough support and aid in rewriting. Would anyone be interested?

[Grays Harbor]

OOC: Interesting debate, perhaps. Practicle idea for the WA? Not even close. As has been pointed out, english is the language of the forum and of proposals, not a universal WA language. And we really don't need a proposal about grammar.

[Mons Garle]

Any proposal to "protect" proper English is fundamentally flawed because there is no such thing as a standard, "proper" variety of English. The same can be applied to any language, but particularly to English, due to it being very much a pluricentric language, with several accepted standard forms. British and US English are both standard forms, yet both spell many words differently.

Within British and US English you also have a huge variety of dialects, none of them being more correct than any other. Thus trying to artificially prevent language evolution and regulate which variety is the "proper" one is always to going to be problematic.

[Ceni]

People make errors all the time, and it's not the end of the world if people make them, nor is it, in my opinion, the W.A.'s business.

EDIT: Phrasing

[Flibbleites]

Thanks for the explanations. I guess maybe the guy writing in three languages should have put the other two in a spoiler or two, right?

Could have helped. I don't think we had spoilers then.

No we had them, but he put each translation into it's own spoiler box so it still took up way more space than was necessary. And he couldn't take the hint about how pointless the multiple foreign language versions were

[I Vermin Supreme]

I posted a comment here yesterday that was entended to be humor. A moderator TGd me with a very nice, professional, respectfull, message. I was playing around with writing a new accent. I had no idea that my comment could have been seen by anyone in an offensive manner.

To anyone who may have found offense in it, I apologise.

To that moderator. Thank you for letting me know. Thank you for an explanation. Thank you for removing the post. Thank you very much for your kind, professional, and understanding reaction and TG.
The TG would not allow we to reply to say this. I have no idea who the mod was. I dont know where I should have posted this comment.

But I just could not sit silent and not express this.
People are quick to complain and find fault, especially if an athourity figure isn't perfect. But strangely enough, they aren't so quick to speak out when a person in authority does the right thing.
Well moderator.... whoever you are. Your actions show that you were what a moderator should be.

To everyone else. Especially those who have a problem with moderators..... They are doing a mighty fine job.
They, are doing it right.

They deserve our acknowledgment for it.

I say this OOC, as the person who plays this account, and "The dictatorship of Bubba Reb."

If this needs to be removed for being in the wrong location or whatever, I understand. Just please make sure the mod I'm speaking of sees it first if at all possible.

[Bok Land]

Any proposal to "protect" proper English is fundamentally flawed because there is no such thing as a standard, "proper" variety of English. The same can be applied to any language, but particularly to English, due to it being very much a pluricentric language, with several accepted standard forms. British and US English are both standard forms, yet both spell many words differently.

Within British and US English you also have a huge variety of dialects, none of them being more correct than any other. Thus trying to artificially prevent language evolution and regulate which variety is the "proper" one is always to going to be problematic.

And yet, at the same time, official documents seem to not contain spellings from these huge variety of dialects. Each nation has it's own official rules for spelling. My idea wouldn't be to make a set spelling system for the WA but for nations to regulate their own rules to protect their language (going with the multi-lingual idea) and revamp education to promote proper spelling (yes, it does exist) in their language. As Bok Landians speak English I am using English as a model.

[The Dark Star Republic]

"Protecting a language" would be better served under the general topic of protecting intangible cultural heritage.

Each nation has it's own official rules for spelling...to promote proper spelling (yes, it does exist)